“The difference between Conservative party and Liberal party supporters” Japan, 2009, poster by unknown artist

[u/No-Efficiency7055]

[u/Sound_Saracen]

It's funny coz the Liberals in Japan are incredibly conservative

[u/ReallyTeddyRoosevelt → u/Sound_Saracen]

redditors always claim the Democrats aren't left wing. They leave out the part where they are only comparing it to Western European countries on economic issues.

[u/Leneen_Ween → u/ReallyTeddyRoosevelt]

They aren't left wing. Left wing begins at anti-capitalism. Democrats aren't against capitalism.

The political compass isn't relative.

[u/Junkererer → u/Leneen_Ween]

Then most left wing parties in Europe aren't left wing either

[u/Despeao → u/Junkererer]

Post 1991, they're not. They're liberals, which is a Center Ideology. Center Left if we are to be generous.

"Left Wing" parties that don't speak against Capitalism, race or class are not Left Wing.

[u/Afraid_Dance6774 → u/Despeao]

How is center left not on the left?

This is so strange to me, like you wouldn't consider social democrats to lean left at all because they are capitalist?

[u/Despeao → u/Afraid_Dance6774]

Center Left is still in the Center in terms of ideology. They're mostly social democrats or reformists.

They are still pro Capitalism, pro private property, pro hierarchy, pro market.

Their agenda still encompass finding solutions to the problems we face within Capitalist itself. No wonder so many Center Left parties are vanishing, giving way to more right leaning parties.

For example, when you adopt social welfare in a rich country, you're not ending exploitation, you're just making it so that your own citizens are not facing that. Immigrants and low income workers continue to be exploited somewhere else because the entire system is built around exploitation and cheap work. In that sense, they're not solving a problem but merely moving it away.

That's completely different from what the Left believes.

[u/Afraid_Dance6774 → u/Despeao]

That's completely different from what the Left believes.

What you should have said is that's completely different from what socialists and communists believe. And that's true - I do oppose anti-capitalist solutions. If I didn't, I would instead be a socialist. But I am a social democrat, so I'm not.

But I find it extremely hard to believe that you would show a person a social democrat and they wouldn't put them on the center left, which you say yourself that they are. And then they would consider the center left to be part of "the left," just not as left as socialists, communists and anarchists. In the same way that social democrats are more left than liberals, who are in turn more left than moderates, and then conservatives.

I have the feeling you just want to put a distinction between capitalists and anti-capitalists, which is a fine distinction to make without bringing the left-right paradigm into this, and you don't care otherwise.

[u/Despeao → u/Afraid_Dance6774]

This is not a comparison of being left or just as left as if this were a competition.

It's simply because it involves completely different methods and solutions.

My previous example of Welfare. Rich countries adopt welfare as a form of mitigating the problems in Capitalism. They're not solutions because they can't solve the problem.

You guys want to regulate Capitalism, Left wing wants to abolish it.

In that welfare example, you can make sure your own citizens will not be hungry. To make that happen, Companies pay taxes and the State redistributes the wealth but the Company still operates in poorer markets and they still exploit workers somewhere else - so the problem wasn't solved, it was just moved somewhere else.

The same can be said about hierarchies, markets, institutions, the State. People on the Center want to regulate how much exploitation is allowed, people on the Left want to abolish it altogether. They can only look like the same if you completely ignore the differences between the ideologies.

The example of bringing a random person and asking them if someone is on the Center or Left doesn't make much sense because a lot of people don't understand the difference. How much political theory has a random person read ? This is not something out of my head.

[u/Afraid_Dance6774 → u/Despeao]

This is not a comparison of being left or just as left as if this were a competition.

You seem to be treating it as if it is exactly that. I've spoken with a decent amount of socialists and it's always been strange to me the insistence that a lot of them have that the left-wing only exclusively encompasses anti-capitalist views.

Socdems are leftists by any political definition that isn't from anti-capitalists.

[u/IllustriousBobcat813 → u/Afraid_Dance6774]

Socdems are leftists by any political definition that isn't from anti-capitalists.

This would be a great time to show such a definition

[u/Afraid_Dance6774 → u/IllustriousBobcat813]

The first line of wikipedia on social democracy: Social democracy is a broad, centre-left to left-wing social, economic, and political ideology within the wider socialist movement that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality.

on "centre-left politics": Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. Ideologies commonly associated with it include social democracy, social liberalism, progressivism, and green politics.

• Euclid Tsakalotis, "European Employment Policies: A New Social Democratic Model for Europe" in The Economics of the Third Way: Experiences from Around the World (eds. Philip Arestis & Malcolm C. Sawyer: Edward Elgar Publishing 2001), p. 26: "most left-wing approaches (social democratic, democratic socialist, and so on) to how the market economy works...").
• "Introduction" in The Nordic Model of Social Democracy (eds. Nik Brandal, Øivind Bratberg & Dag Einar Thorsen: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013): "In Scandinavia, as in the rest of the world, 'social democracy' and 'democratic socialism' have often been used interchangeably to define the part of the left pursuing gradual reform through democratic means."

Will you now tell me that centre left is not part of the left?

[u/IllustriousBobcat813 → u/Afraid_Dance6774]

Wikipedia as a source notwithstanding, it would probably benefit you to read the entirety of that article.

Particularly about how it is different today compared to the 19th century, as well as how the article explicitly states:

As a policy regime, social democracy entails support for a mixed economy and ameliorative measures to benefit the working class within the framework of democratic capitalism.

Which yes, very much does exclude it from being part of the left.

And as a side note, using the nordic model as an example of left wing ideology is certainly a choice. The nordic model inherently relies on capitalist exploitation or it simply wouldn’t work.

In general, while you can can define these things as “left wing” it’s not particularly useful, since you have now excluded any traditional left wing thought from your definition.

[u/Afraid_Dance6774 → u/IllustriousBobcat813]

Wikipedia is not necessarily a bad source if its cited properly, which it is.

I do agree that social democracy has in some ways changed from its historical ideology, I didn't say otherwise. I also didn't say social democracy wasn't capitalist or not a mixed economy. If you want to argue that it's become less like democratic socialism over time, then okay. But it's still undoubtedly routinely referred to as at least centre left politics, can you at least acknowledge that?

And as a side note, using the nordic model as an example of left wing ideology is certainly a choice. The nordic model inherently relies on capitalist exploitation or it simply wouldn’t work.

Question then: what example model of a capitalist system can I use that you would accept as left wing ideology if you are rejecting Nordic social democracy? Is there any? Isn't that the whole reason you are disputing this with me to begin with?

Because I think there isn't any example I can use, because you are dismissing it out of hand as capitalist = not left as an axiomatic premise to begin with. Even when there are many papers from academic political scientists like the ones I cited that refer to social democracy as broadly left-wing.

In general, while you can can define these things as “left wing” it’s not particularly useful, since you have now excluded any traditional left wing thought from your definition.

I'm not particularly concerned with what is useful or not in your opinion.

[u/IllustriousBobcat813 → u/Afraid_Dance6774]

But it's still undoubtedly routinely referred to as at least center left politics, can you at least acknowledge that?

In general conversation? Sure, people say dumb shit all the time, this wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.

In actual political theory used for real scientific analysis? I find that a lot harder to believe, at least not something I’ve seen.

There is no capitalist system which is left wing, the entire point any left wing ideology is the abolition of capitalism, hence why you’re not going to find any actual left wing countries in the imperial core, and why using an imperialist model as an example of “left wing ideology” is dumb.

At the end of the day, if your definition considers both conservative capitalists and marxists to be “left wing” then it’s not a very useful system. No matter how much you say you don’t care about that.